The Rev Speaks: Lunacy in Lubbock

Close the confessional door, allegiant acolyte.  It’s high time for The Rev to come clean.  What’s that, devoted disciple?  You say there’s a long line of parishioners standing in the transepts waiting to be heard?  Please tell them I’ll be available for spiritual counseling in a few moments.  (Perhaps they could sing a few bars of “Amazing Grace” in the interim.  That’s always been one of my favorite hymns.)  It has been far too long since The Rev last turned God’s microscope upon himself.  Please accept my ardent apologies, boys and girls, for failing to post a new column lo these many months.  In between changing diapers (or, more accurately, cheering on The Better Half as she does it), watching scores of Elmo and Wonder Pets videos, grading exams, and compiling research for a doctoral dissertation, all journalistic endeavors have lain fallow.

It seems as if The Rev picked the wrong time to enjoy a little sabbatical.  These past ten weeks have provided enough examples of athletes behaving badly to keep bloggers and talk shows busy for an eternity.  At first I thought about discussing Tiger’s seemingly endless parade of prurient paramours, or the wholesale redemption of Dirk’s character and basketball career.  It is certainly telling to compare and contrast the two superstars, especially how their choice of girlfriends played a direct role in their respective athletic prowess and reputations.  While Dirk is unmarried, and therefore technically free to fraternize with any vile assortment of lounge lizards, his game away from the court nearly sabotaged his game upon it.  Ever since he wisely jettisoned the Keitha-like Cristal Taylor—only after being thoroughly mocked and humiliated—Dirk’s stats have never been better.  He is putting up some of the best numbers of his career, now that he is finally liberated from paternal and financial worry.  Tiger, on the other hand, is buried deep.  As Mark Purdy of the San Jose Mercury News wisely reminds us, the only way Tiger won’t win more than 18 majors is if he develops a bad back and/or a bad marriage.  In this writer’s humble opinion, the Golden Bear can now sleep peacefully at night.  Tiger will find the going very tough if and when he returns to the PGA Tour.  It’s got to be hard to concentrate on golf when a scorned Swedish model/nanny is nearby, angrily clutching a nine-iron.

The Rev is just not that eager to listen to confessions from either Tiger or Dirk (especially because they have already been punished enough by the relentlessly harsh klieg light of public opinion).  Besides, the Apostle Paul emphatically states that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3.23).  Therefore, I will spare the dead horse from yet another beating.  It goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway) that no mere human words can trump the enduring truth of Scripture.

No, brothers and sisters, let us instead turn our attention to the vast West Texas plains.  Lubbock to be precise, where the once-impervious pirate ship is rapidly foundering.  Wednesday morning Chief Pirate Mike Leach was hastily forced to walk the plank.  Yes, dear readers, this website is indeed entitled Dallas Sports Fans, but since the Metroplex is filled with passionate Red Raiders, it behooves us all to devote a few paragraphs to Guns Up Nation.  Much has already been written, and much will continue to be written, about this developing situation.  As a result, The Rev isn’t really breaking any news here.  I readily admit to having no inside information about this fiasco (although both my father and older brother at one time walked the bucolic campus of Texas Tech University; I also attended a school whose colors are black and red), so I will try to offer a unique perspective.  Since I am a relative dilettante in all matters Red Raider, I will not concern myself with whether or not Leach actually locked Adam James in an equipment shed; or whether or not James was routinely castigated for lack of effort and a poor attitude; or whether or not Leach’s arrogant refusal to reconcile with the University hastened his departure; or how James’ teammates feel about their former coach; or even how high-powered alums react to this fascinating coup d’etat.   Mistreating a “student athlete,” especially one dealing with the lingering hazardous effects of a concussion, is always unacceptable.  But is this a fire-able offense?  (Yes, I know that Kansas fired Mark “Happy Meal” Mangino for considerably less, but still.  What is it with those Big 12 coaches?)  The Rev can’t help but wonder, however, what would have happened if the player in question had been John Smith from San Marcos, son of a humble electrician.  Would this divisive issue have been handled differently?  Is it not tenable to posit that Mother Mouse Ears (ESPN) coerced AD Gerald Myers’ usually forgiving hand?  Remember, this is the same man who extended a lengthy olive branch to the always-cantankerous and controversial Bob Knight.  More than eight years ago, The General—also, like The Pirate, a proven winner who ran a clean program and graduated his players—was the equivalent of swine flu, cast off by Indiana and regarded as a pariah.  Yet there was Myers, who displayed tremendous audacity in hiring Knight, in the process giving him a second (and third) chance.  Knight, of course, rapidly reincarnated and reinvigorated the then-moribund Tech Basketball program.  Why, then, was Myers so quick to throw Leach overboard, even before hearing all sides of the story?  Did Myers act upon purely speculative information, or is he privy to facts that the rest of are not?  Could Leach’s alleged abuse of a player be viewed in the same way as Knight’s verbal assault of the Tech chancellor in February 2004?  Knight’s testy encounter with Dr. David Smith in the produce section of a Lubbock grocery store was also an explosive event which was plastered on the front page of myriad newspapers across the country.  After days of deliberation, and after Knight was allowed to apologize before the Board of Regents, Myers labeled the incident a “misunderstanding” and fully reinstated Knight.  The General then coached for three-and-a-half more largely successful years afterwards.  Again, I am not one to judge.  If I so much as skin my knee while chasing after my daughter I moan and whine interminably like Peter Griffin.  If I were in James’ shoes I, too, would have seriously questioned Leach’s bellicose actions.

So why did the powers-that-be at Tech move so quickly (blindly?) to dismiss Leach.  Could it perhaps be the fact that the domineering specter of ESPN was looming overhead?  How soon we all forget last year, when Leach guided the Red Raiders to an astonishing 11-1 record, a Top 10 ranking, and, were it not for a hideously inept sixty minutes against Zero U, a BCS Bowl bid.  This time last year The Pirate was widely hailed as an eccentric genius.  Yet now, at 8-4 and headed to the mediocrity that is the Alamo Bowl, Leach’s impression of Captain Jack Sparrow is viewed as both dangerous and embarrassing.  (Thanks to fellow St. Mark’s grad Scott Tinkham for this insightful HSO.  Looks like he really did learn something at Jersey Shore Duke.)  Every parent who sent their son to play basketball at Texas Tech knew the risks involved with playing for the always-unpredictable Knight.  With Leach, however, the circumstances are quite different since, after all, he had no priors of misbehavior.  However, even the most oblivious parent surely understands the likelihood that egocentric college football coaches might berate and bully their sons on occasion.  Is it far-fetched to assume that Florida’s retired-for-now Urban Meyer or Nick Saban at Alabama (both known to be extremely demanding coaches, yet each wearing rings to prove the method in their madness) never once doubted their players’ manhood or stretched them way beyond their physical threshold?  Granted, if Leach indeed forced James to sit in a sweltering shed, that is a far worse offense than ordering a few extra wind sprints.  Nonetheless, I ask once again: is this truly a fire-able offense for a coach with a heretofore clean ledger?  Is it also a fatuous assumption that had James’ father been a media personality with, say, Versus or Fox Sports Panhandle, that Leach would still be the head ball coach at Texas Tech?  Besides, what does any Division I school crave more than winning games?  Visibility and money.  Playing on ESPN assures both in spades for the Red Raiders.  Unfortunately, now that Tech has fired Leach, their most marketable personality has suddenly vanished.  (No disrespect to Ruffin McNeill, but a betting man would guess that Tech will lose out on many prized recruits without Leach’s intoxicating bottle of rum.  Playing for Tech will now seem like joining The Goonies only after One-Eyed Willie’s mysterious loot has been found.)  Will the Game Day crew be as excited next season to set up shop in Lubbock when the Red Raiders are a boring 1-1 heading into their clash with the Longhorns?

For those too young to remember (myself included), here’s a refresher: Craig James was one of the main reasons (along with the other half of the Pony Express, Eric Dickerson) SMU football was even talked about in the early 80s.  Although James himself was not accused of any wrongdoing when the Mustangs were receiving large sums of money from delusional school boosters, James was a key member of a team (along with WFAA’s intrepid sports reporter Dale Hansen, who isn’t half the reporter that KARK’s Pete Thompson is) that led to the school’s historic Death Penalty (not to be confused with President Obama’s ruinous Death Panel).  And now, here’s James, nearly 30 years later, behind another major football scandal that very well may lead to a death penalty of sorts at Texas Tech.  Without its widely-revered and unabashedly-rarified pirate leader, things may deteriorate for Red Raider football before they improve.  Mutiny on the bounty, indeed.

By the way, for those still doubting the Dallas connection within this column, consider the following hypothetical.  Jerry Jones, in need of a new offensive assistant/QC coach once Wes Phillips is sent packing along with his buttermilk-loving father, reaches out to an innovative Pirate.  Keep in mind, Jerry has always had a soft spot for inveterate swashbuckling svengalis.  Even more intriguing high comedy would be watching Leach “coach up” the massively underachieving orangeblood Roy Williams.  Or perhaps diva Tim Crabtree will demand a trade out of San Francisco to be reunited with his former beloved college coach.  The Dallas Cowboys are never ones to shy away from a soap opera.  Maybe while he’s at it, Leach can even find a unique way to motivate Barbie “Morning Seagull” Carpenter.  Nah, even Jack Sparrow himself would be rendered speechless with that paradox.

Best wishes for a blessed 2010.  Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea . . . He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’  Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true’ (Revelation 21.1, 5).

Here ends the lesson.  And all of God’s people say . . . “Amen!”